Sean Penn Has “Terrible Regret” About Meeting with El Chapo

Last weekend, Sean Penn temporarily imploded the internet with his Rolling Stone story on Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the infamous Mexican drug lord who met with Penn in his secret jungle lair in early October before being captured by authorities on January 9. This week, Penn was conspicuously silent on the matter, refusing to speak to the press or emit a single peal of laughter about all of the brilliant memes since created in his honor. But on Sunday, in an interview with Charlie Rose for 60 Minutes, Penn will finally weigh in on the Rolling Stone piece, the subsequent outrage, and whether he had anything to do with El Chapo’s capture.

A preview clip of the show that aired on CBS This Morning on Friday reveals Penn is feeling neither responsible for El Chapo’s apprehension nor apologetic about the ethical questions that arose when Rolling Stone disclosed that it had given Guzman final approval on the story. “There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I with El Chapo, that it was—as the Attorney General of Mexico is quoted—‘essential’ to his capture,” Penn told Rose. “We had met with him many weeks earlier...on October 2nd, in a place nowhere near where he was captured.” “So as far as you know, you had nothing to do and your visit had nothing to do with his recapture?” asked Rose. “Here’s the things that we know,” replied Penn.” We know that the Mexican government…they were clearly very humiliated by the notion that someone found him before they did. Well, nobody found him before they did. We didn’t—we’re not smarter than the DEA or the Mexican intelligence. We had a contact upon which we were able to facilitate an invitation.”

According to Penn, the purpose of the interview was not simply to eat tacos and take shots of tequila in the Mexican jungle with a famous fugitive. Rather, it was to incite a worldwide discussion about the war on drugs—which didn’t happen. “I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy in the war on drugs,” said Penn.

“Let’s go to the big picture of what we all want,“ he continued. ”We all want this drug problem to stop. We all want them—the killings in Chicago to stop. We are the consumer. Whether you agree with Sean Penn or not, there is a complicity there. And if you are in the moral right, or on the far left, just as many of your children are doing these drugs, just as many. And how much time have they spent in the last week since this article come out, talking about that? One percent? I think that’d be generous.”

Under those terms, Penn believes the article was unsuccessful. “My article failed,” he told Rose. “Let me be clear, my article has failed.” Despite this, he still considers himself a journalist, and says that much of the resulting outcry came from fellow reporters who were envious of his unprecedented access to El Chapo. “When you get the story that every journalist in the world wanted, there’s a lot of green-eyed monsters who gonna come give you a kiss,” Penn said. “At the same time, you know, when … journalists who want to say that I’m not a journalist—well, I want to see the license that says that they’re a journalist.”

Though, as Rose noted, Penn may have concerns larger than journalistic envy to contend with, such as the Mexican government and those in El Chapo’s cartel who may believe the actor is responsible for their leader’s apprehension.

“Do you believe that the Mexican government released this in part because they wanted to see you blamed and to put you at risk?” Rose asked. “Yes,” Penn said. “They wanted to encourage the cartel to put you in their crosshairs?” Rose asked, incredulous. “Yes,” Penn said. “Are you fearful for your life?” Rose asked. “No,” Penn said.